Maria Lothe & Co’s Can You Hear the Sound of the Flowers? (photo: Maria Lothe)

Jair Ramirez begins Sugarman intriguingly enough, entering the stage in his dressing gown as if it is his bathroom and the audience his mirror. He yawns and takes out toothbrush and paste to clean his teeth, but all too soon the theatricality of his presentation is revealed as a thin pretext for his speciality: aerial straps. His dressing room of sartorial props is set up to lead us to his first show of prowess, turning with his head supported in a strap while holding an open briefcase. In his second feat, he writes notes while suspended in the splits and then braces himself supine between two straps, one attached to his feet and one to his head. He maintains this pose with all the nonchalance of lying in bed and gets applause, for it is his prodigious strength that eclipses the theatricality that leads to its display. It is a problem with circus acts that want to explore outside the ring; there is a difference between emphasizing the theatricality of a particular act, and dressing an act in theatricality. Ramirez has chosen the latter, an option that further reveals its weakness at the end when after finding an effective moment to leave the stage he feels the need to return in his dressing gown to continue brushing his teeth.

Maria Lothe & Co’s Can You Hear the Sound of the Flowers? begins with three supine dancers (Svenja Buhl, Fergus McIntosh and Victoria Rucinska) in loose, vegetable-coloured clothing propelling themselves tortuously across the stage like a race of snails, each holding a potted plant on their stomachs; they could be tendrils searching for light but for the resistance of the Marley floor. Lothe & Co develop these images further with meditative poses, a vocabulary of gestures derived from biology and paleontology, vocal work learned directly, perhaps, from plants in various states of health, and mystical incantations. There is an intensity and humour in the three plant warriors as they grapple with the exotic forms and pliability of nature in all their idiosyncratic rawness, borrowing the dynamics of both growth and sickness since there’s not a drop of water to be seen under those blazing lights. If you’re going to choreograph a piece on the benefits of permaculture* this is the way to do it, using the kind of witty associations between body and plant life that make you want to read more (except for those who mistake the wacky humour as a spoof). But it also renders the recorded text by permaculture founder David Holmgren far too serious, sitting uneasily with the fertile imagery on stage below. It is also superfluous. As the three performers inch their way off at the end leaving the potted plants centre stage, Lothe & Co have already done their job; it’s up to us to explore Mr. Holmgren’s ideas further.

*Permaculture takes its inspiration from ecological systems and patterns in nature. Through its ethics and principles, permaculture provides practical methods of how to develop sustainable human environments.

The Rebirth Network’s Reuben Parker is a selection of episodes that form a preview to a longer work, not enough of them here to spin its moral but complete enough to recognize its value and to want to see more. It is described as ‘a hip-hop dance drama about a man who is granted a special gift to shift and shape his reality.’ Clearly such a gift can be both a blessing and a curse and that is the drift of this morality tale which begins with the narrator’s biblical voice of contrition: “I want to tell you a story.” The action introduces us to Reuben Parker in his present form and then relives autobiographical episodes of his life; dancers who play Reuben at different times of his life each wear white gloves so we know who’s who and each episode or tableau is clearly introduced by the narrator and separated from the next one by a blackout. On the way up, we see Reuben saved from bullying at school by a kind teacher and his acquisition of a special gift of power over others. On the way down we see him squander his gift in his careless treatment of his mother, lose the girl he loves and acquire a gambling habit. The dynamic rhythm of Luke ‘Gkid’ Grant’s original music and Daniel 7’s choreography make Reuben Parker look like a musical on a spiritual theme, but the upbeat production values tend to even out the register of emotional ups and downs: the special teacher, Mr. T., makes only a brief appearance for such an influential figure, and the tragic death of Reuben’s mother becomes merely sentimental. At times there are sixteen dancers on stage and the strongest choreographic expressions belong to them as they communicate not only their love of performing but their belief in their message.

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